Jim

Went to Tempests with the intention of refitting the front coolant flange as its leaked ever since we did the job last time.

Whilst dismantling we discovered a nice purple beard down the back of my radiator indicating it was shot so off to GSF for an el-cheapo radiator.. nothing really fitted lining it all up but Eric gave it some gentle persuasion. Fitted new front flange with added extra gasket paste to try and make the whole system seal, new expansion tank (I can see the coolant level again! How novel!), the new radiator and we changed the gearbox oil for some new G52 stuff from VW. Pretty productive though disheartening day. Getting under the car, and getting up close just shows how much stuff needs sorting on it.. sigh :(

Thanks to Tempest for his tireless efforts today again. Its really appreciated mate - without you, 2cc and Supercharged i'd be lost!

Locking this up as I think we should keep this to the definitive exhaust discussion thread. Thats sorta what its there for!

Cheers.

A Corrado VR6 will easily beat the economy of your Beetle. I'm seeing approx. 29MPG (getting about 350 miles for £55 of BP Ultimate) in my Corrado at the minute.. and whilst thats only a 2.0 16v, they seem to be LESS fuel efficient than the VR6 - a VR will easily match or beat that.

Love em.. all of them! Its sort of like an Audi RS4 but a little more old man, and a little more affordable :D

This sounds like exactly what I had with my bad ISV. I could start the car, run it, let it idle, rev it and so on for 10-15 minutes but as soon as I started to drive it, i'd dip the clutch and it'd cut out. I used to get straight on cutting out or idle that just bounced up and down all the time. Tried cleaning the ISV many times to no effect.. replacing the ISV cured the problem flat out. Has never acted up with idle since.

ISV's can just go bad - and no amount of cleaning them can bring them back!

I'd say the lambda probe is a possible place to get looking there, along with all the vac lines and air intake pipework. Even a small leak in one of those can noticably affect the running of the car, so if you've got a fairly hefty leak you may end up with very unusual results. Arm yourself with a can of carb cleaner and start spray it around all the black pipework in the engine bay.. spray it around the joins, etc in the pipes with the engine running and listen for any surge in revs or change in the way the car is running.

Going back to the lambda, a faulty one of those can produce wild results. Watched a car with a duff lambda once, and it would barely idle - virtually stalling, misfiring, belching out black smoke, very difficult to rev.. I wouldn't have ever thought a sensor could affect the car that badly to the point where it looked like something was mechanically very wrong with it! Its very common on the Corrado that its not actually the lambda that is broken, but actually the wiring to it which has gone brittle and snapped with age so.. have a good a poke around down there!

Looks really good! :) But whats going on with that //M horn button!! Wonder where the PO got that idea from!! :)

That random button thing is actually something to do with a Clifford alarm.. it allows you to punch in an override code if you lose your keyfob I think! Looks like they did a pants job of installing it though!! :(

What I wouldn't give for a passenger ride (or the chance to drive) one of those astounding cars. I guess I had best keep dreaming!

I'm insured with HIC and am very happy so far with the service i've had from them. PM martinb on here - he works for them! You can speak to him on the phone and he can sort you out with a good quote! :)

Jons real sound guy.

Totally agree with that! Always has time for a chat, happy to show you what he's doing on your car, and will do whatever he can to help you out! Fits in well up at Stealth! :)

Thats what we like to hear! I think you need to consider changing insurers though after that debacle.. their handling of it sounds dreadful!!

I still don't understand how the other party is able to dispute the claim when he went into the back of you! Its always an open and shut case in those situations isn't it?!

I've been quoted less to insure a Mercedes SL55 AMG and a Porsche Cayman than it costs to insure my Corrado. Go figure :(

Hi mate.. yeah, i've got one of these. Sniped off eBay for something ridiculous like £2 posted.. it was in mint condition too.

I'd guess that a lot of it is the same for stuff like brakes, etc...

The Passat one you linked to is the right one mate for the 9A - in the fetching Dinkus pink!

Its a bit different on a G60 as it calculates MPG figures from certain values in the ECU.. so, for example, when you fit a different pulley the economy figure will be incorrect.

I remeber my old tuned G60 used to tell me it was giving fantastic economy.. the pump of course told a different story.

I just worked out on that site that if i'm putting in approx 57 litres and getting about 350 miles out of a tank i'm hitting nearly 30MPG. Happy with that! My MFA tells me i'm getting nowhere near that! Mind you, in recent days i've been experimenting with very very light throttle usage, instead of normal type driving and its amazing how economical you can make these cars if you really just drive super slow. The problem is that in order to keep up with normal traffic, you just can't drive like in economical as you end up with reps driving about an inch from your bumper getting angry! Ho hum.

Nope I'm running 4L G12 + and the rest is water.

Yikes.. I think thats way too much! My cooling system I used 2x 1 litre bottles of G12+ and the rest was water! I think you've got too much coolant in there!

Digging the Impreza, but like the others have said.. don't really get Punto's!

As for the car, yep it's got the full karmann leather interior in black with the heated front seats.

Might as well tell you this now before someone else does but ALL Corrado's are Karmann's basically. Everyone of them was styled & built at Karmann Coachworks in Osnabruck so they all sport that little Karmann badge inside on the gear surround.. even cars with lowly cloth interiors like mine ;)

Welcome aboard though.. looks like a superb example. And the VR6 engine is pretty addictive.. the Corrado as a whole, once it gets under your skin, can be hard to get rid of! :)

Red = good :)

Nice looking motor.. the paint looks to be in wonderful nick! I'm sure you'll learn to love it eventually ;)

either way isn't it more impressive that the corrado was acheiving what a lot of cars these days boast about, over 10yrs ago 8)

True, but then a Corrado VR6 cost considerably more than a Honda Civic Type-R does! You'd hope it'd be a lot faster! It was priced about the same then as an absolutely top spec fully loaded Golf R32 would cost now..

Yes and yes.

Avoid bump starting it mate whatever you do. Its been discussed on here quite a bit that the VR engine doesn't really take well to being bump started.. something to do with it damaging / stretching the timing chains?

Don't be in a hurry to T-Cut it mate. Highly reccommend using the meguiars three stage cleaning kit on a red car.. paint cleaner / polish / wax - mine suffers from fade in some places but the three stage brings it right back out again. Does a really good job :)

Good job. Has the smell gone away now? Would have been pretty gutting for your Corrado to go out from an engine fire after the amount of work you've put into it mate.